What the hell is Islamic finance?

I was reading today about how Canada, and Toronto in particular, could become a leader in Islamic finance, and I thought to myself, "What the hell (oops!) is Islamic finance?
Further reading tells me that Islamic finance refers to financial products and services built on sharing the risk of a transaction equitably among the parties involved, backing by hard assets, not involving the charging of interest, and not involving industries regarded as "sinful" (i.e. alcohol, gambling, pornography or weapons).
Fair enough. But what that would actually look like in practice escapes me. The closest I can get is interest-free loans guaranteed by property (like a second mortgage), or ethical investing in companies producing sin-free products. There is nothing essentially Islamic about either of those things, although I guess you can label it however you like. And anyway, no bank, whether Islamic or not, is going to carry out such services for free, and any fees they charge are basically just the same as charging interest, just under a different name.
Tbe article went on to talk about Islamic mortgages and Islamic insurance, which made just as little sense to me. I came away from the article concluding that Islamic finance is really just any finance carried out by and for believers in Islam, which really is just a glorified example of niche marketing. But then, what do I know, I'm just an ignorant heathen.